Digital consumption of audio and video content has proliferated in recent years. The main drivers include ubiquitous Internet connected devices and a variety of content offerings available from services like Netflix, Amazon and Pandora. Video content includes media such as TV shows, motion pictures, news casts, and user generated content clips. Audio content includes media such as music, news casts, and audio books. Content can also include image data such as digital images. Some methods of content delivery can be termed Over The Top (OTT) where the distribution network is not owned by the content distributor (for example, internet distribution of Netflix content). OTT networks are often characterized by uncertain, variable network conditions.
Technologies such as adaptive bitrate streaming can help overcome variations in network properties, such as those posed by OTT networks, and enable uninterrupted playback of content in a way that can compete with consumption of content on tangible media, such as DVD and CD, and with linear programming, such as cable, terrestrial, and satellite TV. Adaptive bitrate streaming, or adaptive streaming, involves detecting the present streaming conditions (e.g., the user's network bandwidth and CPU capacity) during playback and adjusting the quality of the streamed media accordingly. Typically, the source media is encoded at multiple bit rates and the playback device (or client) switches between requesting different encodings depending on available resources and streaming conditions. When a playback device commences adaptive bitrate streaming, the playback device typically starts by requesting portions of media from the lowest bitrate streams (where different bitrate streams are available). As the playback device downloads the requested media, the playback device can measure the available bandwidth and local processing resources. In the event that there is additional bandwidth and processing resources available, the playback device can switch to higher bitrate streams. Current protocols for adaptive bitrate streaming include HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) developed by Apple Inc. of Cupertino, Calif., Microsoft Smooth Streaming IIS Media Services extension (MSS) developed by Microsoft Corporation of Redmond, Wash., HTTP Dynamic Streaming (HDS) developed by Adobe Systems Incorporated of San Jose, Calif., and Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (DASH) specified by the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG).
The consumption of media on demand enables consumer choice and can free the consumption habits of users from linear content that is broadcasted at set times, such as by terrestrial, satellite, and cable TV. Despite the availability of DVRs (Digital Video Recorders) and VOD (Video On Demand) libraries, which enable the consumption of content at times convenient to a user, the actual consumption habits often still favor linear TV as several recent studies have shown.
The selection from a catalog or menu of recorded content initially appears to be the most obvious choice to enable content selection, and DVR (Digital Video Recorder) menus, VOD libraries, and services like Netflix typically currently provide a user interface that allows for this selection. When browsing for alternative content options the user interface typically requires leaving the playback environment, selecting a different piece of content, loading it, buffering until it is ready to start playback and playing the opening credits until the user can get a first impression of the content. When the user is looking for a suggestion of alternative content that can be quickly evaluated by the user, changing channels (surfing) using linear TV is typically a quick and simple experience where pressing a channel up or down button results in near-instant switching to display content from the next channel that can be evaluated by the user as a consumption option.